Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/421

Rh Ah, what a life! From youth to age

Keeping the faith, in noble rage.

Ah, what a life! From knightly youth

Servant and champion of the truth.

Not once, in all his length of days,

That falchion flashed for paltry ends;

So wise, so pure, his words and ways,

Even those he conquered rose his friends.

For went no rancor with the blow;

The wrong and not the man, his foe.

He smote not meanly, not in wrath;

That truth might speed he cleaved a path.

The lure of place he well could scorn

Who knew a mightier joy and fate—

The passion of the hope forlorn,

The luxury of being great,

The deep content of souls serene

Who gain or lose with equal mien;

Defeat his spirit not subdued

Nor victory marred his noble mood.

GEORGE MACDONALD

, loving, exquisite, enraptured soul,

Who wert to me a father and a friend;

Who imaged and brought near, all humanly,

The sweetness and the majesty of him

Who in Judea melted human hearts,

And won the world by loveliness and love;

Dear spirit, who to the Infinite Purity

Past, without change, and humbly unabashed—